Breathe In, Breathe Out
by Maxiekat
Summary: Jack and Kathy hit a stumbling block in their relationship and Jack worries that the demons of his past could hurt his chances for a happy future. One shot. COMPLETE


Note: I don't own _Breathe In, Breathe Out _by Mat Kearney or _Four Brothers. _My original character, Kathy, originally appeared in _Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk_ and other one shots and short stories. I didn't mean to write this, I was just looking through some old files I had and came across the beginning and then I picked it back up and before long it was 3:30 am and I was posting a new story ...

**Breathe In, Breathe Out**

_We push and pull, __and I fall down sometimes __  
><em>_I'm not letting go, __you hold the other line_

"What have you got behind your back?"

Kathy took a step back and ducked her head, her hair hanging in her face, covering her eyes. "Nothing."

Jack had never known anyone who was worse at lying than she was. "Come on … show me."

She shook her head and he got up from the bed. They were in his old room and it was tiny as hell and there weren't any places for her to run. He wrapped his arms around her waist and leaned down and whispered in her ear, "I can tickle you for it." She hated to be tickled almost as much as he did.

Kicking out and giggling, she cried, "No." She squirmed away from him, hand still firmly held out of view behind her back. "Back off, Mercer. I know how to box now and," she paused, her nose did that cute wiggly thing it did when she got confused. "And … um … I'm not afraid to use it."

"To use boxing?"

"Yep."

"And that should scare me?"

"Well, Bobby taught me."

"For exactly five minutes before he got annoyed and stormed out of the gym."

"Boys and girls," Bobby bellowed from downstairs, yelling so loudly that the walls practically shook. "Time for dinner. Move your asses or it goes to the dog."

"There is no dog," Jack yelled back.

"I'll go to the pound and fucking adopt one so I can give him your meatloaf. Don't think I won't."

Jack looked at Kathy, confused as hell. "What did he just say?"

She shrugged. "He's your brother."

Guard down, she started to walk toward the door and Jack seized the opportunity and snatched the box from her hand. "Jack!" She spastically reached for him, knocking them both onto the twin bed.

"Victory," he cheered as he held up the box. His grin faded when he realized what he was holding.

Pink and blue. The box was pink and blue and had a huge plus and minus sign on it.

He dropped it like it was on fire.

She saw the look of horror on his face and her heart dropped. "It might be negative."

He didn't answer.

"I'm only a couple of days late."

Still no answer.

"It's been a stressful week with driving here from New York, worrying about being away from work for two whole weeks … just stressful, you know."

Not saying a word, he pushed himself up off the bed and stormed down the hallway to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

XxXxXxXxXx

Kathy softly knocked on the door. "Jack, let me in. Please." She was talking as quietly as she could. Bobby was downstairs and she swore she could hear him pacing, waiting for them to come down for dinner.

"Jack, you scare me when you get like this," she admitted as she slid to the floor, her head resting on the wood door.

She saw the markings running up the door jamb, ticking off someone's height. She could faintly see the name "Jack" written in pencil next to the one that had an eleven etched in the wood. He'd told her that was how old he was when he came to the Mercers. She ran her finger over the mark, wondering if he even knew Evelyn had started marking his height as soon as he'd arrived, long before he was adopted. It was like Evelyn knew he was hers from the moment she brought him home. She could see her watching him leave the bathroom in a hurry, mentally marking off his height so she could go back and make a note of it. The one marked twelve was a little higher and she'd have to stand to see the rest, that's how tall he'd gotten. And so fast. She remember in school, one minute he was maybe a couple inches taller than her and in the next it was like she had either shrunk a foot or he had become a giant over night.

He talked so rarely about life before Evelyn and she was afraid to push. Just from what she could remember from school and the bits and pieces he'd let slip when they talked, she knew it was bad, really bad. It hurt just to imagine and a part of her was scared to know the truth. It made her feel like a coward sometimes – those moments where she could ask the right question and get to the truth but she chose to take his shrug and sad smiles as answer enough. Some journalist she was.

The door moved and she caught herself before tumbling onto the tile floor. The lights were turned off, but she could make out the shadowy figure of her boyfriend, leaning against the tub, his knees pulled up and his arms crossed over them.

She decided to leave the light off and crawled over to where he was sitting. Her hip touched his and she scooted a little closer, craving the closeness even if he didn't even acknowledge her presence.

"I'm paranoid," she said with a sigh. "You know that. I cut my finger, I need stitches. I bump my head, rush me to the ER because I need a MRI."

"I know," Jack said, his voice somehow deeper in the tiny room, those two words bouncing off the walls.

"This is nothing." She waved the box and he hung his head like it was some evil talisman she brought to rob him of his power. "Jack, this is me being paranoid. Knowing me, I probably counted wrong in the first place."

Resting her head on his shoulder, she said, "I'm sorry I scared you."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, I'm the one being an ass." He started twiddling his thumbs and she knew that meant he was working out what he was going to say, tumbling it around in his brain, waiting for the words to sort out. He always told her he could tell what she was thinking by watching her face, well she could always tell by watching his hands.

"I never had a father," he said quietly, almost like it was under his breath, like he was embarrassed to say it. "I don't know how to be a father."

"Well, it's not like my mother was any great example for me." She nudged him with her knee. "All she taught me was how to make a daughter's life miserable."

"This is different, though." He ran his hand through his hair, pushing it up and off his face, making it stick up in all sorts of directions in the silhouette she could make out. "What if I hurt the kid? What if I screw him up?"

"You won't …"

"You don't know that, Kathy. I had such a fucked up childhood…"

Tears pricked the back of Kathy's eyes, tears for the boy who was hurt so terribly. She took a deep breath, trying to keep her voice steady, knowing how much he hated it when she cried. "You've grown into a wonderful man any kid would love to call dad." She took his hand and squeezed it. "Evelyn did good."

She could barely make out his smile. "She did the best she could."

"She did awesome."

He laughed. "Let's not push it, Kath."

"Plus, the more I think about it …" she let her voice trail off and shrugged. "Nah, you'll just say I'm being silly."

"Silly about what," he said, nudging her shoulder.

"Well, if you think about it, you kind of did have a father."

Jack scrunched his eyes up and shook his head. "Don't say it …"

"Bobby."

Jack slid down, his head propped on the edge of the tub and his legs stretched out in front of him, well as far at the sink would allow. He looked at the ceiling and sighed. "Shit, you just had to say it."

"He kind of was. You may not realize it and I'm pretty sure he hasn't got a clue about it, but he was a father to you when you needed one the most."

"He used to set things on fire, including people," Jack said bluntly.

"And I chose to pretend you mean that as some sort of metaphor and not an actual fact," she said. Truth was, scared as she was about Jack's past, Bobby's terrified her.

"Yeah, a metaphor for burning shit down. Ask Jerry about his treehouse."

"He already told me."

"Oh."

"Twice."

Jack laughed. "Good ol' Jerry."

It grew quiet and Kathy could hear the grandfather clock in the hallway ticking and Jack's breathing as he stayed where he was, sprawled out on the floor. She worried the flap of the pregnancy test box with her fingernail, peeling apart the cardboard. "I think you'll make a great dad," she finally said.

"You have to say that, you're holding a pregnancy test and scared out of your mind."

"No. I have to say that because I love you and someday I want to have a family with you." He shook his head and she had half a mind to shake him to rattle some sense into his brain. "Jack Mercer, you have to get over this idea that you're not good enough and that you don't deserve to be happy."

"I am happy."

"You might think that, but not completely."

"You read minds?"

"No, I listen to your music, I read your lyrics, I lie next to you in bed and see how restless you are. It's like you've got happiness, but you're afraid of it and you don't know what to do with it so you keep waiting to turn that corner and have it all disappear." She started to feel the tears she was holding back build up in her chest and she couldn't stop them or the words that were tumbling out of her mouth. "And I want to shake you and tell you to just stop and look right in front of you because you don't need to worry anymore. You have me and Horatio and we're not going anywhere and if there's one more of us, then that's going to be okay, too."

"I have Horatio?"

She smiled a little and wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. "Yes. You're stuck with me and the cat and we aren't going anywhere."

He sat up and moved so he was sitting in front of her. He pulled her to him, his arms wrapping around her. "And you're stuck with me," he whispered into her hair.

"Good."

He picked up her hand, the one with the box and said, "I guess we need to see about this, huh?"

"You're okay with it?"

He fidgeted with the box and gave a small shrug. "Maybe more okay with it than I thought. Does that make sense?"

She nodded with a small hiccup from crying.

"We'll know for sure in ..."

"Thirty minutes," she finished for him.

"Thirty minutes? I thought they were only supposed to take a minute?"

"Well some do, but it felt more official if it takes thirty minutes."

He kissed the top her head. "That's my Kathy."

XxXxXxXxXx

Jack kept getting up to get stuff from the kitchen. He couldn't help it. They'd set the timer on the microwave and he was convinced that time was moving backwards because there was no way only fifteen minutes had passed.

Bobby narrowed his eyes at him as he sat down. "Are you sure that's everything now?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

Bobby eyed the jar Jack brought with him and tilted his head. "Pickels. You pregnant or something, Jackiepoo?"

Kathy choked on her meatloaf and Jack knocked over his beer.

"Jesus Christ, fairy, I was just kidding."

The rest of dinner passed in silence, Jack pushing his food all over his plate, Kathy taking tiny bites, and Bobby scarfing down everything in sight.

Bobby was finishing off his beer when the timer finally went off. Jack locked eyes with Kathy and she nodded, a worried look in her eyes as she chewed her bottom lip. "Uh … be right back, Bobby."

They both bolted up the stairs, barely hearing the confused, "What the fuck," that followed them.

They made it to the bathroom in seconds flat. Taking a deep breath, Kathy picked up the stick and Jack peered over her shoulder. He blinked once. Twice. And then he slumped onto the closed toilet seat.

Kathy picked up the box to compare the markings. She squinted and double and triple checked. Satisfied she had her answer, she sat it all on the counter and moved to Jack. He pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. "You okay?"

She nodded and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. "You?"

He nodded and then said, "Yeah, but I think I need a drink."

XxXxXxXxXx

Johnny G's was practically empty and Kathy, Jack and his brothers were all sitting at the bar, enjoying the Mercer family tradition of trying to out drink Bobby. The older he got, the easier it got.

"I want to make a toast," Kathy announced, raising her drink into the air. Coke, of course, her excuse being that one of them needed to be sober to drive home.

"What are we toasting?" Jerry asked as he raised his glass.

"Jack isn't going to be a father"

"O …. Kay," Jerry said with a confused look.

She took Jack's hand and smiled. "But he wants to be someday."

Everyone took their shot and Bobby smacked Kathy on the back. "Good job on not getting knocked up."

"Um … thanks … I think?"

"You're welcome. Yo, Johnny, 'nother round for me and my two little sisters."

Kathy sank back into Jack's arms and he leaned down and said, "You know, I may be stuck with Horatio, but you're stuck with Bobby."

She looked up at him and squinted thoughtfully behind her glasses. "I suppose it's a fair trade. At least Bobby doesn't cough up hairballs on my couch."

Everyone got up from the bar to head for a table and Bobby shouted over his shoulder, "Yo princess, move your ass and don't forget your ball and chain."

Kathy laughed. "Okay, I may have to rethink the fair trade thing …"


End file.
